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Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Tuesday's Tute: Applique Dress

This past winter Curly drew this dress. I just now got the chance to sew it up. And, she didn't know I was working on it until I had the front finished. Boy, was she pleasantly surprised. This week we're going to show you how I created the applique pieces for this dress.

Materials:
Dress Pattern (We used our Fun and Easy Knit Dress Pattern)
Fabrics
Iron on adhesive (light-weight that can be sewn through) If you do not intend to sew through the appliques, purchase the adhesive for that purpose.
Pom-Pom trim for the flower center.
Piece of paper for the flower pattern
Chalk

Directions:

1. Lay out and cut front and back dress pieces.

2. Lay dress front onto grass fabric.

3. Cut around the dress with about 1/4 extra.

4. Lay the grass piece on top of the dress and cut the grass blades as desired.

5. Cut a stem and leaves. I cut the leaves from the grass blade scraps. Use a plate to choose the flower size. Ours was a saucer for a size 5 wide dress.

6. Trace a circle from the plate and add a center circle. I used a ball jar lid. Add the petals. I did the petals free hand.

7. Use the plate and chalk to cut a circle from the flower fabric. Then put the flower pattern onto the wrong side of the fabric and use chalk to trace the flower onto the fabric. Cut out the flower.

8. Our flower and sleeve are the same fabric. So I cut out the sleeve at this time.

9. Attach the fabric pieces to the iron on adhesive as directed on the adhesive. (Tip: do not ever let your iron or ironing board touch the sticky part of iron on adhesive. I always use a scrap paper barrier between.)
Lay out your applique pieces and iron them down.

My stitching embellishment choices for this:

I used a zigzag stitch (2 wide by 2 long) around the edges of the grass piece.

I gathered up the center of the stem for dimension and stitched it to the dress up the center with the zigzag stitch.

I stitched a straight stitch through the center of each leaf.

I stitched a straight stitch three times from the center of each petal out about 3".

The center of the flower are the balls cut loose from pom pom trim and hand sewn on.